Consumer Behavior in Tourism: Theories, Models, and Emerging Trends

UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER

Introduction

Consumption behaviour refers to a collection of activities or ideas that consumers engage in to satisfy their wants and requirements. For this area, "all actions directly involved in procuring, consuming, and disposing of things" are included, as are the decision-making procedures that herald and follow these acts. This field of study is referred to as "travel behaviour" or "tourist behaviour" by marketing and tourism researchers. There are few comprehensive reviews of the literature on consumer behaviour theories and models in tourism. A company's marketing strategy might be hindered or bolstered by the sentiments of its customers. "When a person's attitude toward a psychological item is measured, it's called an attitude. People develop this habit because of how they perceive and evaluate the product's core traits or beliefs. People's perceptions of the world are shaped by their personal experiences with good/bad or like/dislike concepts. This is the essential aspect of an individual's attitudinal response. Consumer decision-making theory places a high value on attitudes because attitudes drive behaviour according to traditional beliefs. Consequently, attitudes have been questioned in contemporary social psychology studies since they might shift depending on the environment.

Figure: Travel Behavior or Tourist Behavior

Source: (Juvan, 2018)

If you want to get people to buy your product or service, you need to make them feel good about it rather than tell them what they are getting. Involved parties in the travel sector. Because of these and other factors, the tourism industry's marketing and advertising campaigns significantly impact how tourists choose their vacation destinations. A person's social network and other first-hand sources of information may substantially affect their decision as to whether or not to visit a particular region. Because of where they come from, travelers’ behaviour may be influenced. Being true to one's own culture is a significant part of North American life for most people. It is common for tourists from Japan and Korea to go on vacation. Visitors' behaviour changes significantly as a result. All of the bare essentials like electricity, water, clean surroundings, and adequate accessibility are required to draw people to a place, as is its significance. It is easier for a traveller to have a wide range of alternatives, interests, and knowledge when they are well informed. Consider this while picking a vacation location.

Macro Aspect of Consumer Behavior

Some of the patterns you have discovered in your investigation are macro-environment trends, which are external factors that have no impact on the industry's performance or strategy. Climate change, social unrest, changes in the law and politics, or even technological breakthroughs might be included in this. Coworkers' attention was drawn to these eye-catching trends. Unpredictable weather patterns may make it difficult for hotels and visitors alike to visit warm or frigid locales. Hotels should improve their infrastructure to withstand lousy weather to solve this problem. Customers of mountain service providers may be offered a four-season travel strategy. Environmentally friendly practices and initiatives are becoming more and more critical for businesses of all sizes. Actions to save energy and water are among them. It is good that hotels and restaurants have alternatives like energy-efficient lights and appliances and give leftovers to local food banks that they can share with their visitors. The hospitality industry can benefit from implementing these tactics to promote and attract guests (Ateljevic, J., 2017).

Micro Aspect of Consumer Behavior

Microeconomics examines the role tourists and companies play in the economy, focusing on their decision-making processes. Consumers and companies both make these selections when it comes to where they will go and how much they will spend. Consumption expenditures and consumer demand curves focus on consumer place in microeconomic theory. Customers will look for alternatives to travel if the cost increases. Thus, they will look elsewhere. Habitual, variety-seeking, dissonance-reducing and complicated are the four types of consumer behaviour in the tourist industry. Different forms of consumer behaviour may be categorized based on the type of product, the amount of engagement, and the customer's location. Tourism's "microenvironment" may be defined as any area in which a company's everyday activities directly influence its immediate surroundings. As a result, the company's overall performance and the day-to-day activities of its employees might be affected. When developing marketing strategies, marketing managers must consider the top management, finances, operations, human resources, research and development (R & R&D), accounting, and so on of different tourism sectors. Working closely with them is essential for marketing managers, as it will allow them to make more strategic judgments. The manufacturing, finance, legal, and human resources departments all share the task of identifying and satisfying the demands of the company's customers. Market and resource opponents are referred to as "competitors" in business lingo. If a tourist industry wants to be successful, it has to deliver more value and satisfaction than its rivals are. Rather than just reacting to the needs and desires of their customers, marketers must seek to gain a competitive advantage by positioning their products advantageously in the market. (Eadington, W.R. and Redman, M., 2018).

Consumer behaviour theories, concepts and models

The rise of Airbnb and online travel search engines like Expedia may negatively impact the tourist business. To overcome this problem, establish travel choices that appeal to this generation of travelers, such as Marriott's Moxy hotel brand that targets Airbnb users. A widening divide has emerged between the highly affluent, the middle class, and the destitute. It is predicted that this disparity would widen the most in Asia. Visitors must have a range of alternatives to choose from, whether a moderately priced hotel or a remarkably reduced cuisine for those on a budget. This is in stark contrast to the opulent lodgings afforded to wealthier visitors. Travellers may decide to remain closer to home or forgo holidays altogether due to rising costs of eating out or staying in hotels due to factors such as unemployment, inflation, or just having less discretionary cash. Package packages with restaurants or local attractions, weekend vacations, or lower prices might all be options to help hotels weather the economic storm. Menu specials are restaurants should think about (Cohen, S.A., Prayag, G. and Moital, M., 2014).

Many studies on tourism and consumption concentrate on CB as if the trip decision-making process takes place in a vacuum, which is not the case. This insular and tourist-centred approach to decision-making is seldom challenged in research. Only in exceptional circumstances, based on ecological systems theory, does the choice of travel over other forms of leisure rely on the allocation of expenditures to travel. Because of the rising economic uncertainty in the West, which affects discretionary purchase patterns, future research should pay more attention to the interdependencies between tourism and other consumption choices than either of these studies does. Using the laddering approach, the means-end hypothesis is one of the most often utilized theories in tourism research to figure out a tourist's value. According to the "means-end" hypothesis, consumers have a hierarchy of methods for achieving their consuming objectives. Many previous assumptions on tourists' motivations have only been tested on minimal populations. Studies have been done more recently to stretch or expand the validity of these models and hypotheses experimentally. It is widely agreed that the original ideas and models are still relevant and primarily applicable to visitors on vacation for enjoyment.

Self-congruity theory, which focuses on the perceived fit between a product or its user personality and one's self-image, is often utilized in this context (Sirgy, 2018). According to the expectancy hypothesis, positive travel memories are associated with experiences that meet or surpass visitors' expectations. Despite its detractors, the discrepancy hypothesis holds that a person's level of happiness is determined by the gap between what they get and what they anticipate (Priester, J., 2017).

When it comes to consumer decision-making, traditional beliefs on attitude theory claim that attitudes determine behaviour. As a result, recent social psychology research on mindsets has questioned the stability of perspectives, which may fluctuate as contextual elements (such as how problems are presented or emotional states) change. While the Theory of Planned Behaviour is based on attitudes toward conduct, subjective standards and perceived behavioral control, it challenges its predictive and explanatory value (Ajzen, 2019). The "attitude-behaviour gap" in CB, which we will discuss later in the context of ethical consumerism, lies at the heart of this difficulty. Cognitive and emotive dimensions are intertwined, although exploration of consumer perceptions tends to focus on the cognitive features of the perceptual process, frequently at the cost of the affective aspects. The traditional theories of rational consumer behaviour are somewhat undermined by the increased integration of questions of justice and conscience into consumer purchases. Marketers may better distinguish and position their businesses by knowing ethical consumers' views and motives.

Conclusion

Finally, new findings from tourism-focused CB research must be integrated into broader CB and marketing studies. Marketing studies significantly influence tourist CB, but they have minimal impact on tourism CB itself. In many cases, the choice to go on a vacation is a profoundly personal one. Tourist consumption's hedonic and emotional aspects have received less attention in most consumer behavior studies, which rely mainly on the concept of rationality limitations and decision-making frameworks built for items for the customer. To get a more profound knowledge of how consumer travel behaviour interacts with and affects the larger landscape of consumer consumption, CB research in tourism must consider these aspects and further explore this rich environment.

References

Ateljevic, J., 2017. Small tourism firms and management practices in New Zealand: the Centre Stage Macro Region. Tourism Management, 28(1), pp.307-316.

Bagozzi, R., Gurhan-Canli, Z. and Priester, J., 2017. The social psychology of consumer behaviour. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

Cohen, S.A., Prayag, G. and Moital, M., 2014. Consumer behaviour in tourism: Concepts, influences and opportunities. Current issues in Tourism, 17(10), pp.872-909.

Eadington, W.R. and Redman, M., 2018. Economics and tourism. Annals of Tourism research, 18(1), pp.41-56.